On The Semantic Mapping Mechanism Between The Jinling Registers In A Dream Of Red Mansions And Related Characters From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

There is no doubt that A Dream of Red Mansions is full of mystery.Especially,only the first eighty chapters are left.The most significant clues to reveal the mystery lie in chapter five,the Jinling Registers,which include 14 poems in all.Many scholars get to infer some main characters' endings from the 14 poems.So,in order to explore how these scholars come up with the results,this essay will analyze the semantic mapping mechanism between the poems in the Jinling Registers and related characters.In the framework of Conceptual Blending Theory of cognitive linguistics,the thesis will analyze the mapping mechanism between the Jinling Registers and related characters,hoping readers can understand how poems in the registers maps into characters.Also,this cognitive research method is quite helpful to understand other poems as well.The Thesis is conducted by the combination of theory and analysis.It includes five chapters.In chapter one,the author introduces the novel and the Jinling Registers.The significance of the study and the purpose of the thesis are also mentioned in this chapter.In chapter two,the author introduces the development of the theoretical foundation of the thesis,conceptual blending theory,and how this theory has been put into practice.Then,the author makes a review of the linguistic study of A Dream of Red Mansions and previous studies of poems in the novel.The author introduces conceptual blending theory in details in chapter three,including mental spaces,the model of the theory,conceptual blending network and the process of conceptual blending.In chapter four,the author starts to analyze the poems in the Jinling Registers based on conceptual blending theory.First,the author analyzes the 14 poems in the registers in detail in the order of the appearance of the poems in the novel and the author summarizes the process and results of the analysis.Then,the author categorizes the genres of counterparts,concludes poems of each category and analyzes each genre with the help of conceptual blending network.Chapter five is the conclusion of the whole thesis.In this part,the author introduces the major findings of the thesis as well as the limitations and future expectations of the thesis.Analyzing the poems in detail can promote the understanding of each character,and make the blending process more clear.Categorizing the genres of counterparts in input spaces can help us have a general idea of how the mapping mechanism works.After conceptual blending analysis of the Jinling registers,the thesis concludes five genres of mapping between lines and characters.Also,the thesis shows which kind of lines are more likely to point to the character directly and which kind is more likely to elaborated,in other words,to produce emergent structures of characters' endings.Also,we can see how the author buries clues in his writing,which can help us understand other poems or even the whole context in the novel.During the analysis,there are still some limitations.Hopefully,in the future study,we can make some improvements.